This is directed ONLY to those bisexual/homosexual men who date women. STOP infecting women! For whatever reason you abandoned your first choice of having sex with men, fearing HIV is a reason, and you decided to get your pleasure from women who you considered 'safe', infecting them and their babies with HIV. In many cases it's playing Russian Roulette with women's lives, in many other cases it's MURDER! Do you see what your desires have done? As an article on The Body says, castration, jail, attempted murder, etc. is too good for you who deliberately throw caution to the wind, who do not care at all about the lives of women, who wanted "LOVE", all for your own %^^$%#^^ desires!! Repent so that God will judge you favorably.

I'm tired of hearing about men who live the "secret gay life" and go home and infect their wives/girlfriends. Although its everyones responsibility to have safe sex, a wife shouldn't have to worry about HIV when she doesn't know her husband is gay and he totally hides the lifestyle from her. This reminds me of a woman I used to work with several years ago. Her husband worked for a large department store chain and travelled alot. They had 3 kids together and were married for 15 years before she found out he had HIV and while he was travelling with his job had all these affairs going with men. Needless to say they divorced and he has HIV, she does not thankfully. She had no idea about his lifestyle until she went into the attic of their home to look for a leak and found scores of gay magazines. Gross huh.

I appreciate your caring comments. That wife was extremely lucky she didn't get hiv from her husband. Recent large African study showed that by end of one year, 79% of wives were hiv infected by their husbands. Women often get infected right off the bat. It's a man's world, at least most of the time.

Please realize that this is a forum for self-identified gay HIV+ men. I hope this is just a warm-up and you have already parked your soapbox somewhere where you can really utilize your energy. You need to be empowering women who need help, not threatening closet queens who probably don't have the cojones to look at websites like this anyway. I come here for support, education and comraderie, not to see you preaching to someone who's not even reading.

Not here to empower women who need help at all. Here to tell MEN who infect women to think and to stop it. Closet queens, I don't know what that means. Queen is a woman, not a man. I assumed the disgusting men who infect women read here, since their first 'choice' is often other men, not women...so then that would make them gay I would think.

Knowing that there are straight men out there who also go with men, women should be careful. These men are not "gay", however. They're living the straight lifestyle, in the closet, telling lies right and left. I agree with the other post saying they wouldn't even be here in a gay mans site. They don't identify themselves as gay. The probably hate gays. They're slimballs who lead a double life full of lies. Knowing this, women should be very cautious. Remember, it takes TWO willing people for infection to occur. And unfortunatly, everyone has to be responsible for their own health. Just don't put this situation off on gays.

I see what you mean, thank you much for your post explaining men living a straight life style but leading a double life. Many women don't understand bisexual men, these men have a first-choice, but they choose 'everything' and that shows their lack of character, immaturity, and pervasive evilness.

AIDS Drugs May Cause Other Illnesses Research* Strokes and coronary disease are linked to powerful protease inhibitors, some doctors suspect.

By JANE E. ALLEN, TIMES STAFF WRITER

The powerful drug cocktails that have enabled AIDS patients to live longer, healthier lives are now suspected of causing heart disease in some of the very people they've saved.

Cardiologists and AIDS specialists across the country say they are seeing an increasing number of patients on the drugs who have suddenly suffered chest pain, heart attacks, strokes or who have been found to need artery-clearing angioplasties. The problems are occurring in men in their late 30s and 40s, decades earlier than typically would be expected.

Researchers are struggling to determine whether the cardiac complications are a consequence of the medications, the inflammation caused by chronic HIV infection or some combination of factors. But a few initial studies back up doctors' anecdotal reports suggesting that the drugs, specifically protease inhibitors, may be linked to the heart ailments. Researchers with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for instance, found a slight increase in heart attacks among 3,000 HIV-positive patients on protease inhibitors, compared with 3,000 HIV-positive patients on other drug regimens.

Study author Dr. Scott D. Holmberg acknowledges that heart attacks among AIDS patients on antiviral medications "are still relatively uncommon." But, he said, the problem is "in the early phase."

Many doctors still don't routinely screen their AIDS patients for heart disease, even though the subject of HIV and coronary artery disease has become the hot topic at many AIDS conferences. And the protease inhibitors, introduced in 1996, are relatively new.

Dr. Gary Cohan, managing director of Pacific Oaks Medical Group in Beverly Hills, one of the nation's largest private AIDS practices, agreed that the problem is still in its infancy. "We're about five years in, and we're seeing the tip of the iceberg," he said. "I think we're going to see an epidemic of serious cardiovascular disease."

Protease inhibitors, which interfere with the production of proteins that the AIDS virus needs to reproduce, have been widely regarded as miracle drugs. And they are--giving new life to patients who thought they had no future. With some new medications, however, side effects don't show up in clinical trials, arising only after the drugs are in much wider use.

Among the first protease inhibitor side effects to be identified was lipodystrophy, a redistribution of body fat that created the so-called buffalo hump behind the neck and big bellies in AIDS patients. And gradually doctors began to see elevated cholesterol--especially the so-called bad, or LDL, cholesterol--triglycerides and prediabetic conditions, each of which over time can be a powerful engine for heart disease.

Although each of these conditions has been associated with other classes of drugs that attack the deadly virus and keep it from multiplying, the elevations most often have been associated with the proteases. "The proteases are and were heroic drugs," said Cohan. But "they come with a price tag attached that includes a lot of side effects."

The suspected link to coronary artery disease may be the most troubling, because the outcome potentially could be fatal.

Some AIDS specialists, knowing that protease inhibitors raise cholesterol and promote diabetes, have put patients on other classes of antiviral medications first, as long as the patient isn't resistant to them, and saved the proteases for later.

Said Cohen, "We have regimens that may sustain people for many years before we have to use proteases."

The CDC's Holmberg fears that reports of cardiac-related problems may cause doctors and patients to overreact, leading them to stop prescribing and taking the drugs. Protease inhibitors, he said, work well and shouldn't be discarded.

Besides, he added, new drugs may arrive before the apparent heart and diabetes complications of protease inhibitor drugs render them unusable.

While debates about the possible cardiac effects of the drugs continue, doctors agree that all HIV patients need to share their complete family health history and have their blood tested for cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar. "We need to pay more attention to lifestyle factors that maybe in the past we haven't been considering," said Dr. Judith Currier, associate director of UCLA's Center for Clinical AIDS Research and Education. "We also need to recognize that there may be reasons that the risk could be higher." Currier is studying early plaque buildup among people on HIV therapy, untreated people with HIV and people who are HIV-negative.

Although many doctors who treat HIV-positive patients focus on reducing levels of the AIDS-causing virus, Cohan said, "the doctor has to take off his HIV blinders" and help patients reduce their heart disease risks. That means encouraging them to follow a low-fat diet, watch their weight, exercise regularly and give up smoking.

Dr. Debra R. Judelson, a Beverly Hills cardiologist, has HIV-positive patients who have had negative cardiac stress tests, yet gone on to have heart attacks. As a result, she has become a tough taskmaster when it comes to getting her HIV patients to lower their other risk factors for heart disease while on the proteases.

"I will scream at them, cajole them and bribe them to stop smoking because I believe so passionately it makes a difference. I take the tape measure out. They get weighed. Sometimes I pull spare change out of my pocket and reward them," she said.

One of those patients is Chuck Miller, a 57-year-old volunteer facilitator for an HIV support group.

After six months on a protease inhibitor, his cholesterol, triglycerides and blood pressure rose. He began realizing "the odds are I'm not going to die from HIV; it's going to be heart trouble."

Under Judelson's guidance, he took up yoga, changed his diet and committed to exercise with a personal trainer. He also went off his protease inhibitor. As a result, he said, "my cholesterol has gone from 350 to 174, my stomach is going down. I am now off insulin."

Even with knowledge of the cardiac risks, the psychological burden of another potentially deadly condition can be overwhelming.

"Every once in a while, the reality of all this comes home and I have a few teary days," said John Pinnell, a 47-year-old cardiac technician with HIV who had to undergo an angioplasty and stent insertion.

"This is stuff you're supposed to be dealing with in your 60s and 70s. It happened to me at age 45." But then he reminds himself that, when he was first diagnosed, he dropped out of a nursing program because he didn't think he'd live long enough to finish.

Now, he tries to look at the additional cardiac burden as just "another scoop of mashed potatoes on my plate. The plate just got a little more full."

To be sure, no one is suggesting that AIDS patients stop taking their protease inhibitors. But experts say doctors should be looking for the warning signs of heart disease and prescribing appropriate action--be it medication or lifestyle changes.

"Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony and ultimate shame to save these guys from AIDS and let them die from cardiovascular disease because we didn't pay attention?" Cohan asked.

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives. For information about reprinting this article, go to www.lats.com/rights.

it's odd that the unsafe sex message gets to all groups but the women you're refering to. So they don't want to be infected? Well then have your man use a condom! Its stupid to blame the men. The women that are getting HIV are engaging in RISKY BEHAVOIR! They should not allow men to squirt their body fluids into their bodies. If you do, you're a fool. Transmission of HIV requires TWO people! Empower the woman by teaching her to assert herself when engaging in sex and DEMANDING a condom. If the guy says no, there's your big warning signal. It means he's not using condoms with everyone else, and you are at risk for LOTS OF THINGS not only HIV. Quit being a helpless little mouse and letting the men TELL you what to do. Your life depends on it

Your post all sounds wonderful. However, the lies these guys tell are more than male games, they are attempted murder and an article by THE BODY describes what should happen to them all. The important thing to know is that God will judge those who choose to do evil. Also many women around the world are forced into sex without protection. Also a decade ago there were no safe sex messages for women, in fact doctors were telling women that women were not getting hiv in the U.S. and that it was in gay men, not heterosexual men. Also if a women is dating a doctor, you'd think that he wouldn't say no to condoms, etc., in order to infect her, but it happens.

The Body is a service of Remedy Health Media, LLC, 750 3rd Avenue, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10017. The Body and its logos are trademarks of Remedy Health Media, LLC, and its subsidiaries, which owns the copyright of The Body's homepage, topic pages, page designs and HTML code. General Disclaimer: The Body is designed for educational purposes only and is not engaged in rendering medical advice or professional services. The information provided through The Body should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or a disease. It is not a substitute for professional care. If you have or suspect you may have a health problem, consult your health care provider.